Michael Gove has been accused by legal experts of "upping the stakes and creating an allegations war zone" with the launch of new guidance that tells headteachers they can press criminal charges against pupils who make malicious allegations against teachers.

Earlier guidance stated that heads should "consider whether any disciplinary action" should be taken against pupils who deliberately invented allegations. The guidance sent to heads this week states that "in extreme circumstances, [heads] may even press criminal charges against the pupil".

The Department for Education said the charges would be for malicious falsehood.

But David Wolfe and Timothy Pitt-Payne, barristers who specialise in education law, said it would be unlikely for any case of malicious falsehood to reach prosecution. Only if a pupil was a repeat complainer would this justify the Crown Prosecution Service pressing criminal charges, they said.

Wolfe said the wording created a "much more aggressive culture" when it came to school discipline. "It is upping the stakes and creating an allegations war zone," he said. "This is about sending a message to schools and headteachers to tell them of existing opportunities to deal with behaviour. It makes for a much more aggressive culture."

Pitt-Payne said teachers would be unlikely to want the allegations to be heard in court because the claims would receive more publicity this way.

A survey conducted in 2009 by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers found a quarter of teachers had suffered a false allegation, and that one in six had had the parent of a pupil make a false allegation about them.

Under the new guidance, schools will no longer have to automatically suspend teachers accused of using unreasonable force towards a pupil, and malicious allegations will not be included in teachers' employment records.

Launching the new guidance, the education secretary said it was impossible to know the extent of poor behaviour in England's schools because heads had become adept at hiding their naughtiest pupils and worst teachers from inspectors.

Gove said teachers had admitted to him that, on the day of an inspection, they had learned to "invite" the worst teachers to stay at home and ensure the best ones were patrolling the corridors. He said the single biggest reason why teachers left the profession was poor behaviour, and what stopped many graduates from becoming teachers was the fear that they may not be safe in the classroom.

"We rely on Ofsted, the school inspectorate, to let us know how behaviour is in many schools … One school I visited told me that teachers had become experts in showing their best face for inspectors."

Gove has introduced no-notice inspections to try to ensure Ofsted sees the true picture, but only a handful of schools have been subjected to these unexpected visits.

The education bill making its way through the Commons gives teachers the right to search pupils for banned items, such as mobile phones, and removes the requirement to give parents a day's notice of a detention.

Charlie Taylor, the government's new behaviour tsar and the headteacher of a school for children with special needs in west London, said many teachers wanted more training in how to cope with unruly behaviour. He said schools should consider hiring psychotherapists to help teachers. "Pupils need to have high expectations, rules and boundaries. In deprived areas, we need to do a lot more for pupils," he said.

Gove said: "There has to be a sharper focus on schools where behaviour is not what it should be."